


How Not To Make Friends And Influence People

by nah_tho



Series: Dumb Interspecies Relations [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Sex, Consensual Rough Sex, Fear of Discovery, Healthy Polyamory, I am so tired, I need to be stopped, M/M, Orc Culture, Rough Sex, Shit gets real buckwild, Size Difference, Size Kink, Taako makes dumb decisions though, Taako/Kravitz but background, Uhh divine marital issues I guess, and my internet is terrible, criminal misuse of d&d canon, hi here's 17k of madness, how do I even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 21:00:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13108443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nah_tho/pseuds/nah_tho
Summary: Taako doesn't quite ruin Lucretia's shindig. Brad's great-aunt turns sixty.The gods have marital problems.





	How Not To Make Friends And Influence People

**Author's Note:**

> yes hi hello it's me Nah and this is jackass but for your emotions
> 
> how did this happen. what is this work
> 
> what have i done, this is absolutely the most BUCK WILD shit i've written yet

“I could’ve told you our boys weren’t going to make it, Taako, but then you would’ve complained all last week instead of just all today,” Lup lilted dismissively, glancing at him sidelong as she took his elbow and steered him clear of another band of admirers, throwing a winning smile at a white-cloaked, red-feathered aarakocra who had bowed deeply at the sight of her, “besides, aren’t you excited to spend some quality time with your twin sister? Hmm?”

Taako tried not to scowl at the firesoul genasi who stopped him to press an adoring kiss to the back of his hand. Heat licked his fingers. “Well, _yeah_ , obviously, but this is one of those parties where we have to be _good,_ Lup. Not the fun kind where we fuck shit up,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

 “Yeah, Lucretia gave me that talk, too.” She leaned down and laughed merrily at something a stout, grey-haired dwarf was saying to her.

Taako somehow got the impression it hadn’t been quite as stern and thorough a dressing-down as Lucretia treated him to every year before the event.

Another person stopped him.

It wasn’t hard to know why.

On top of their impossible fame, they looked incredible: Lup in her teal and peacock green pantsuit, silver cravat puffed out like a robin’s chest, hair swept over one shoulder in a flaxen tumble; Taako in his shimmering dark blue gown, just this side of too sheer for public, hair piled high and twinkling like stars were hidden in its whorls.

This was, in his opinion, exactly the wrong crowd to appreciate their artistry. He could’ve worn burlap and people would’ve been falling all over themselves for him.

Magnus had attempted a suit, at least, but appeared to have split the shoulder seams almost immediately. No one had commented.

Merle had decorated his beard with brightly-coloured flowers, but that was about it. His arm was blooming, though, Taako noticed, so at least Pan had style.

Where she stood by the golden dais at the head of the room, expertly tolerating the crush of people seeking her attention, Lucretia herself looked resplendent in a sombre, understated way, dressed in black with a shawl of rich grey fabric draped over her shoulders.

“Mister Taako, it’s an absolute _pleasure_ -”

He grimaced his way through another round of meaningless pleasantries with a gaudily-dressed throng of Goldcliff locals.

 “Got dressed up for nothing,” he huffed, and Lup elbowed him.

“It’s just gonna suck for a few hours, okay? Try to play nice until Lucretia’s speech is over, then we can snag some free grub and fucking dip on out of here,” she murmured, turning as someone stopped her again.

“Mister Taako, this is Octavius Flannigan of Rockport, perhaps you’ve-”

“Yeah, yeah, hail and well met and where are the drinks at, my good dudes?” Taako said flippantly, interrupting his gold-suited new acquaintance’s introduction. He peeled off before he could get dragged into another conversation, ducking under the arm of an excitably gesturing Magnus and only narrowly avoiding backing into someone.

They were an absolute mountain of a person in heavy Dwarven plate, both broad-shouldered and tall enough to cast a well of shadow that seemed impossible in such a well-lit room. He could see his distorted reflection in their gleaming armour.

He really could use a drink if this was how the night was going to go, he thought, slipping out of their shadow and weaving his way towards the side of the room. He almost paused to take a glass of what looked promisingly like Elvish brightwine from the tray of a passing server when he spotted the bar, and Avi sharing the space behind it with one of the venue’s bartenders.

“- and that is _not_ a responsible way to pour Firbolgian gin-” he heard the bartender protesting as he approached. Taako grinned.

“Doesn’t that stuff explode if you put ice in it?” Taako asked, leaning his elbows on the surface of the bar. “I hear it tastes like shit warm, though.”

The rather harried-looking bartender, an old but well-kempt half-elf with darkly golden skin and hair, seemed gratified by his intrusion. “Exactly so, sir,” he confirmed, bobbing his head respectfully, “As I was trying to explain to my… _companion_ here, Firbolgian gin must be cooled in increments, sifted through Triton shiverdark coral and poured slowly into-”

He lost interest. “So what’re you making me, my man?” he asked Avi, leaving the bartender sputtering.

Avi grinned at him, eyes twinkling. “Well, I know you can’t dump ice in it, but nobody ever said anything about putting it in a shaker with cherry wine and Giant’s mash, right?” he commented casually, moving to do so.

The bartender screamed, lunging for him. Taako laughed.

“Hell yes, fuck shit-”

He would never be quite sure how, in a room full of glittering showmanship, someone who looked so unassuming could have caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

There were more than a few people in attendance with that sort of broad, hulking frame, Magnus among them, but he’d know that grey-streaked ponytail anywhere, even trailing down the back of an unfamiliar, and honestly quite hideous, tweed suit jacket.

“Up?” he finished, staring.

“Well, that got kiboshed pretty quick. What can I get you, Taako?” Avi was asking him. Taako glanced at him, surprised. He’d momentarily forgotten where he was. The bartender was hugging the shaker to his chest, ashen-faced.

“Hold that thought,” he said, tapping the bar with his palm and scooting between a dwarf and dark elf also lingering nearby.

He considered calling out, but something about Brad’s oddly watchful posture was-

“You’re looking awful squirrelly, my guy,” Taako commented, slinking up beside him.

For a split second, the look Brad gave him was clench-jawed alarm, dark eyes wild and body tense, but then it melted first into relief and then wonder. “Taako,” he greeted, smiling. “You look wonderful.”

“Thanks, I know,” he said, and then grimaced. “You look like shit. You know your suit is kind of the _worst_ , right? Oof.”

Brad just laughed. “I had to make do with what I had,” he said, shrugging. Taako watched his eyes dart around the room surreptitiously before settling back on him.

He quirked an eyebrow and tried to follow the path of that look. Nothing and no one stood out as particularly unusual amongst the motley crowd, but then, the whole ballroom was crowded with such an array of different and decadently-dressed creatures that only something or someone truly unusual would’ve stood out at all. “Something on your mind, Bradson?”

Brad gave him a weird, tight smile. “It’s nothing you have to worry about it. This just isn’t really my kind of party.”

“So we’re agreed,” Taako purred, moving in a little closer, but not close enough to be incriminating if someone was watching. “We could always ditch it, you know,” he teased, “there’s more than one room in this place an orc and elf could slip away to, miss a couple boring speeches, if you get my drift?” He batted his eyelashes, knowing it looked ridiculous and intending it to.

To Taako’s credit, he knew Brad well enough to expect that he’d refuse, which was the only reason he’d made the suggestion in the first place. He had every intention of being good, however reluctantly.

This was why it took him by surprise when Brad gave him a long, considering look and said,

“You know what, Taako? I think I’d like that,”

and he knew himself well enough to know that even if the argument _“well, you asked me to show up and I did, bubbeleh”_ didn’t hold water with Lucretia later, he’d still commit to the bit.

“Really?” was his first response, and then, “I should probably tell Lup-”

Lup had escaped the crush of unfamiliar faces and made her way to the bar, much as he had. She was laughing at something Magnus was saying. She was also double-fisting wine glasses. He didn’t even bother questioning how she’d convinced the servers to let her take two.

“Eh, she’s fine,” he decided, and then jerked his head towards a deep alcove by the entrance. “Come on, my man, guarantee you there’s a staff entrance in there.” One they weren’t using, optimally: Taako had seen enough of the venue’s employees cycling in and out of the double doors by the stage to feel relatively confident in that assessment.

He had some strange feelings about how closely Brad was dogging his heels as he slipped into the alcove, though.

“A little space, my guy?” he shot as he tried the handle, giving Brad a look over his shoulder.

“I should’ve known it’d be locked,” was all Brad said in answer, and Taako elbowed him in the stomach to encourage him to back up.

“You sure? ‘Cause I’m not convinced,” he said, digging out the Hole Thrower. It didn’t leave him enough space to squeeze into, but he didn’t need it.

He hummed with satisfaction as he reached in and unlocked the door from the other side.

“Would you look at that?” he chirped innocently, letting it swing open. “Pretty bad security for such a swanky place, huh, my dude? Somebody’s _deffo_ gonna get fired for this.”

He did actually have at least a passing familiarity with the layout of the Goldcliff Trust from his onetime caper there with the Tres Horny Boys, but not this particular section of it.

The door opened on a long, curving hallway, peppered with flickering wall sconces and leading to gods-knew-where, so once he’d gotten it closed behind them, he set about getting his hands on the lapels of that awful jacket: the possibility of getting lost seemed more embarrassing a potential outcome than getting caught making out with the Bureau’s biggest- both literally and figuratively- dork.

The shifty look returned to Brad’s face. “We should move further away from the party,” he suggested.

Taako squinted at him. So much for that plan of action, he thought. “Uh,” he muttered, “okay? Lead the way, I guess?”

Something seemed very off. It was starting to weigh down on his excitement.

He puttered after Brad down the hallway, watching him glance into every dark recess and doorway and feeling the frowning on his face deepen. “Seriously, my guy, what is _up_ with-”

“This should be fine,” Brad said suddenly, apparently to himself, and stopped so quickly Taako collided with his back. “

“What the-”

Brad kissed him before he could finish his complaint, cupping his face with both hands. That weird, watchful look had left him, at least for now. “Sorry,” he murmured, and guided Taako into a deep recession in the wall he faintly recognized as being the sort of place a building like this might keep a suit of armour or a bust of a founder.

He let himself be guided until his back was against the wall, winding his arms around Brad’s neck.

“You know we won’t be able to do much more than kiss here, right?” Brad asked him quietly, pushing his hair out of his face with a thick finger. “I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”

“Naw,” Taako drawled, “we can make out and grind on each other like idiots, that’s fine.” He shot Brad a coy look. “Besides, if things get real bad, my man, we could always ditch this whole scene, you feel me?”

Brad chuckled and kissed him again, slow and tender. “I’d lose my job if I helped you run away from this event. I’ll be lucky to only receive a reprimand if the Director notices we’re both gone. She’s been organizing this for months.”

Taako suddenly realized the quiet wasn’t just because they’d put a few walls between themselves and the ballroom: he could only hear one muffled voice speaking. The speeches had begun already. He thanked Istus that Lucretia hadn’t asked him to prepare one.

He actually wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive him for pulling a stunt like that.

Then again, maybe she hadn’t asked because she’d anticipated his bad behaviour. The thought irritated him.

He leaned into Brad’s kiss, worming his fingers into the warm skin under his collar and humming as an arm encircled his waist.

Brad was warm and unhurried, and Taako melted into the warmth of him, nipping playfully at his jaw when he pulled away.

It took him a moment to realize he’d gone stiff. Taako couldn’t see his expression. He was backlit by the brightness of the hall.

An ear flicked right, unbidden. Someone was trying the handle of the door they’d come in through.

He squawked in protest as Brad pressed him against the wall with a hand, turning to peer out into the hall. He watched his shoulders fill the opening of the recess with a mixture of exasperation and odd apprehension.

“Brad?” he started to say, and then a very deep, very resonant voice spoke in a language he didn’t recognize.

When Brad answered in kind, voice smooth and soothing, he realized what it must be.

He also realized something else: despite the fact that Brad was no longer physically pressing him into the wall, he was pressing himself against it almost on instinct.

He forced himself to relax and slunk forward, trying to peek past at whoever had interrupted them.

An enormous greyish-green hand, bigger even than Brad’s, wrested Brad far enough aside to look into the recess.

He didn’t think before casting Greater Invisibility. A wellspring of unease had opened up in the pit of his stomach the second he saw those sharp-looking nails.

He barely even noticed the relief wash over Brad’s face as he glanced behind him to where Taako should’ve been standing.

The person whose gaze was sweeping over the space he’d vanished from didn’t look like any orc Taako had ever seen.

He dimly recognized the Dwarven armour as belonging to the same person he’d nearly run into earlier, but mostly he was preoccupied by a strangely paralytic dread: whoever this was, this uncommonly gargantuan orc with greying hair and sunken eyes and yellowed tusk-like teeth as thick as his wrists, blocking out the light except for the sheen of it on his darkly-gleaming breastplate, there was something about him that the weave of Taako’s ancestry had looked at and very decisively gone,

_“Nope, absolutely not.”_

His heart was fluttering close under his breastbone. He was careful to keep his breathing quiet.

The orc turned back to Brad and said something that sounded inquisitive to Taako’s untrained ear.

Their exchange washed over him, meaningless. He watched Brad gesture and grimace and watched the orc he was talking to gesture and shake his head and gradually his heart slowed and the fear faded to something ambient.

He eyed the orc’s boots and greaves and gauntlets and wondered at his missing helm, wondered more at who he was to show up to a celebration of their saving the universe like he was expecting a battle, and crept a little closer.

He identified the source of the dread: it was the smell.

It wasn’t bad, necessarily. It was the same odd, anxiety-causing smell he remembered Brad carrying an undercurrent of when he’d returned from visiting his clan.

Taako eyed his distorted reflection in the orc’s armour again, wondered if it was just another orc thing Brad had never gotten around to telling him about, remembered Kilian and decided it wasn’t.

He weighed his chances of sneaking past and pretending he’d never left the party. He was running low on time before his invisibility wore off, and it didn’t look like Brad’s new friend had any intention of leaving.

He’d only made it a few steps when the orc stopped speaking very suddenly and sniffed the air, nostrils flaring.

His eyes swept over where Taako was standing. He said something interrogative again. Brad said something back.

Apprehension crawled up Taako’s spine and over his scalp.

He took another step, slowly, carefully, trying to edge around the corner into the hall proper, and shrieked with a hand darted out and grabbed him by the arm, hefting him off his feet.

His concentration broke, and he whipped his other hand up, already ready to loose a Fireball when he caught sight of Brad’s panicked face.

And then the orc holding him said, in Common,

“I knew I smelled an _elf_ ,”

with such obvious disgust that Taako just went ahead and Fireballed him anyway.

It was far from his best cast, but it was enough.

The orc shouted and the hand around his arm dropped him. He scuttled backwards, summoning another Fireball in anticipation.

“ _You insolent little_ -” the orc was snarling, straining against Brad’s grip on his armour as Brad blurted,

“Taako, please don’t,” which coincidentally was also the moment in which, somewhere down the hallway, Lup said,

“Taako, what the _hell_ is happening and why wasn’t I invited?”

Everyone stopped almost at once.

Lup’s tapping footsteps paused; Taako stayed his arm, fire flickering over his palm and fingers; Brad’s knuckles were grey with how tightly he was gripping the edge of a plate in the other orc’s armour; the other orc himself had gone silent and was looking at Taako strangely, apparently unconcerned by the dark weal of burned flesh on the side of his face or the smouldering embers in his eyebrow.

“Taako?” the orc repeated. “You’re Taako the wizard.” His sunken eyes flickered over Taako’s head. “And you’re Lup.”

Brad was slowly releasing his hold. Taako reluctantly dismissed the fire in his hand.

“No shit, Holmes,” Lup said, trotting up beside Taako. Despite her easygoing smile, Taako caught her fidgeting with the components she’d stashed in her suit pocket as she glanced over at him to ensure he was unhurt. “Who the fuck are you?”

It was Brad who answered.

“Taako, Lup,” he said, sounding very formal and looking very tired, “this is my father, Brad ‘the Bloodthirsty’ Bradson, third of his name.”

“I had no idea my son kept such illustrious company,” the elder Brad rumbled, posture proud and hands folded behind his back, for all Faerûn as though Taako hadn’t just burnt his face. Dark blood was oozing down his cheek.

Taako stared, aghast, as it dripped off his jaw onto the swell of his breastplate.

Lup leaned in close.

“Okay,” she said in Elvish, “weird ‘meet the parents’ moment aside, Taako, there’s no way Brad’s going to get that big, right? Because I was joking before, but now I mean it: I’m pretty sure you’d _die_.”

Taako laughed weakly.

***

He couldn’t even parse how they’d gotten back to the party, only that he probably had Lup to thank for it: everything seemed to wash over him, even the small fire people were rushing to put out behind the bar and Lucretia’s disapproving murmur about how they’d have to have a talk later.

He could see the resemblance, and it was making his skin crawl.

If seeing Brad in traditional raider’s armour had been disconcerting, recognizing that he knew the hard shape of that jaw, the slight downwards turn of that nose, and the set of those thick eyebrows made seeing them in the scarred and war-weathered face of his father unimaginably surreal.

He knew that face, had kissed it, had _sat_ on it, and its translation onto a skull that was missing Brad’s odd nature seemed profane.  Without the caution and mindfulness so core to the person Taako knew it from, it looked and felt _wrong_.

He hated it.

He hated Brad’s father.

His eyes kept gravitating back to where Brad was, and that towering stranger in gleaming armour was never far behind.

Lup seemed to have picked up on it.

After the speeches were over and they’d settled into their tables for the dinner portion of the party, she leaned in close. “You okay, bro?” she asked him in Elvish.

He looked at her. He wasn’t sure what his face was doing. “This is messed up,” he told her in kind. “This is so messed up, Lup.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, taking a sip of something Avi had mixed their table and brought them in a pitcher, winking. It was an odd, murky green, but surprisingly delicious.

“How is- how the- the _fuck_ can two people so closely related be so different?” he demanded, giving up on finding a suitably strong curse in Elvish and just using the word in Common. “Why is his dad so _fucking_ weird?”

“Taako, that’s what most orcs are _like_ ,” Lup told him, her words cascading musically, “You’ve met Killian, right? She and her wife are like… murderspouses. Did you know they’re planning to enter the next _Fantasy Wrestlemania_ as a duo?” She poured Taako another drink and folded his limp hand around it. “What I’m saying, Taako, is that your boy there is the weird one. Your Brad is a super _duper_ weird orc.”

Taako looked at the drink in his hand and then slammed it back before refilling it himself. “I like my weird orc, though,” he muttered, or tried to. Elvish was not a language particularly well-adapted to ugly vocal expressions, and it came out sounding like the low burbling of a brook.

Lup gave him a sly smile. He scowled at her.

“You could… try to make nice with his old man if you like him so much,” she suggested coyly. “He seemed pretty impressed by you.” She hummed thoughtfully, adding, “Maybe don’t mention boning down on his son, though? You do know orcs aren’t usually huge fans of elves, right? I’m not sure even saving the universe could make that bird fly for a war chief.”

Taako grunted unhappily, considered it, and then moseyed on over to the elder Brad’s table, planting himself in an empty chair. He noticed, too late, that Brad himself seemed to be absent, and wouldn’t see how good he was being. “Sorry about your face,” he said in Common, without preamble, and poured himself a second drink out of the decanter in front of him, throwing it back before sipping delicately at the drink he’d brought with him. It burned, but in a good way.

In Brad’s father’s defense, he took Taako’s rudeness rather well.

The elder Brad just laughed and then, in Goblin, barked at the small, harried-looking goblin seated beside him to refill Taako’s cup.

“Double me up, my guy,” Taako said, hoping his own Goblin didn’t sound too rusty, and threw back his other drink before offering both glasses to the goblin.

The goblin gave him a surprised look. Brad’s father hummed.

“Oh?” he rumbled in Common. “How unexpected. It isn’t common for elves to speak the goblin tongue.”

Taako eyed him, trying to shake his distaste, but not trying particularly hard. “Do I look like a ‘common elf’ to you, my dude? I’m _Taako_ ,” he sneered. He could feel the buzz of alcohol creeping through him.

The elder Brad’s easygoing response reminded him a lot of Brad. Taako hated it.

“That’s very true,” he said, leaning back in his chair, which looked like it might’ve been a bench repurposed for the occasion.

Before he could say anything else, a rather pretty and considerably smaller half-orc with ruddy skin and flaming red hair dropped into the seat beside Taako. “He’s still talking to his boss,” she said to the elder Brad, and then looked over. “Hi. Taako, right? I’m Codera, daughter of Yemeth, married into the Bradson clan, and all that jazz.”

As he shook her hand, Taako reassured himself that it absolutely wasn’t that he had a natural dislike of orcs: he liked her immediately. She had that same wildness in her eyes he recognized as being present in in every orc he’d met, though only rarely in Brad, but there was something about her vivacity that seemed less combative and searching than it was in the orc across the table. “Charmed,” he said politely, and she grinned, revealing large but blunted teeth.

“You clearly already know my father-in-law, and I’m gonna say you’ve met Xybart,” she added, nodding at the goblin.

Xybart was holding both of Taako’s drinks, looking nervous. Taako took them and, on a whim, handed one to Codera. She laughed.

“Shit, thanks,” she said cheerfully, sipping at it. “So: do you know Brad? You used to work for the Bureau, right?”

Taako could feel the weight of the elder Brad’s stare on him.

“Yeah,” he said, “Cha boy never went to his HR appointments, though, so like… we met once, I think?” He considered. “This is all recent,” he said carefully.

She nodded as though that statement wasn’t loaded with implications. “Well, who knows. Maybe you can convince him to come home for _Ohm Mh’arakta_ ’s birthday? She asked for him, but I’m not having much luck,” she admitted.

Taako wasn’t sure he could replicate the brightly booming sounds she’d made even if he tried, but he understood the concept they were attached to, and he was very interested in what an orcish birthday looked like. “I dunno, I’d have to know why he doesn’t want to, you feel me?” He was _very_ curious, he realized. He was having trouble picturing it.

“What don’t I want to do?”

It took him a moment to realize, and look over. Brad was slipping into the chair between Codera and his father. Xybart pushed a drink across the table towards him. Brad murmured thanks as he reached out to take it. “What don’t I want to do, Taako?” he repeated. He looked tired and wary, but not especially surprised by Taako’s presence.

“I was considering,” the elder Brad interjected, making Xybart jump, nearly spilling the drink he was pouring for Codera, “inviting you and your sister to our celebrations, Taako,” he said. There was something unsettling about the look in his eyes. “ _Ohm Mh’arakta_ is very old, and complains of boredom often. I think she’d enjoy meeting you.”

For the first time since he’d sat down, Taako realized he may have made an error.

Brad was making an extremely weird expression. Taako looked at him.

“She probably would,” Brad admitted. He sounded conflicted. An odd smile flitted across his lips. “I think she’d like you.”

Taako had the very strong sense that he’d accidentally waded into a very tense situation he knew too little about. “Lup’s boss is a hardass,” he said, mostly to stall for time while he thought, “so I don’t really know if that’d pan out for her, my guy.”

The elder Brad inclined his head in understanding. “I understand. And yourself?” His gaze was expectant.

Taako was very curious. He also didn’t have any real, tangible reason to refuse that wasn’t _‘nah, cha boy doesn’t feel like it’_ or _‘no offense but you freak me out, homie’_ , and he really was _very_ curious.

He looked at Brad again, wishing he had some way of decoding what was or wasn’t going to colossally fuck over the fragile thing he’d built with one of the best lays he’d had the pleasure of not immediately screwing himself out of seeing again.

Brad’s expression was unreadable. Taako watched his throat move as he swallowed.

The elder Brad emptied his glass and set it down in front of Xybart. “I will not take offense if you refuse,” he added in a light, razor-edged tone that strongly suggested the opposite.

Taako looked at him, at Brad, at Codera, and then, on a whim, at Xybart. The goblin’s small, glossy black eyes flicked toward the elder Brad and back. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah, sure,” he said finally, “Taako does birthdays.”

In the periphery of his vision, he saw Brad slowly close his eyes and had the sinking feeling any choice he could have made would’ve been the wrong one.

***

“You did what?” Taako watched the flesh of Kravitz’ face start to melt away before he caught and corrected it. “Lup, how did this happen?

“Don’t put this on me!” Lup crowed indignantly. “I told him to go schmooze on Papa Bradson so his booty call wouldn’t get pissed, not invite himself into a fucking _orc stronghold!_ ”

“Hey, uh, that’s not-” Taako started to protest, faltering when Lup and Kravitz turned looks of frustration and exasperation on him, respectively.

Barry puttered into the living room with a tray of tea, looking unconcerned as he set it down on the coffee table between them.  “It sounds like an interesting experience,” he commented. “Lup told me you were invited to a clan elder’s birthday party?”

“Well, if you wanna say it like that, it sounds ridiculous,” Taako complained as Kravitz ran a hand over his face, muttering,

“Why am I the last to hear about this?” and then, “Barry, no matter how powerful Taako is, it isn’t safe for him to go into an orc stronghold alone. Unlike us, Taako can still be killed, and he can’t open rifts-”

Taako had only just started protesting about being talked about like he wasn’t present when Lup stamped her foot with a shriek of,

“The fuck do you mean, alone? I’m going, too, and boss lady can eat my _entire ass_ if she has a problem with that-”

which did cause Kravitz to blanch so completely that he went skeletal.

“I’m sure the Raven Queen will understand,” Barry interjected smoothly, catching rapidly gesturing hands or, in Kravitz’ case, anxiously clicking finger bones, and placing cups into them. He pecked Lup on the cheek as he gave her hers. “Please be safe.”

Lup’s expression softened. “You know I’m not gonna let anybody keep me from you again, Bear,” she assured, catching and squeezing his hand briefly. “Okay: game plan. Do we have a game plan? Anyone? We had a whole thing with a casino heist in another dimension, you’d think we’d have this shit on _lock_.”

Kravitz regrew his skin and sipped his tea, frowning. Taako had been with him for long enough to suspect he’d reassumed his less offensive corporeal form purely to make it obvious that he was frowning. “Barry and I weren’t involved in that particular adventure of yours,” he said in a way that indicated he was remembering how Taako hadn’t told him about that plan, either.

“Do you have any suggestions, Lup?” Barry prompted gently.

“Just one. Taako,” she said, raising a finger, “under no circumstances are you allowed to kill Brad’s dad.”

***

“I am going to fucking kill Brad’s dad!” Lup screamed over the roaring engine of their roofless battlewagon- ostensibly loaned to them courtesy of the Miller family estate, though Taako doubted Lucas was naïve enough to expect them to give it back- throwing the wheel left as she drifted around a hard corner. “Who the fuck _does_ that?”

“I think it’s an orc thing?” Taako yelled back, holding tight to the passenger door as they sped down a steep slope, tires kicking a shroud of dust up from the packed dirt road. “That’s why he doesn’t like going home-”

“That’s not an orc thing!” Lup interrupted, pulling the parking brake and drifting in a circle before speeding down a nearly-hidden forest path. Pieces of her hair had pulled free from her braid and were whipping wildly around her face. “They only have blood tournaments with other clans- it’s how they resolve land disputes!”

Taako stared at the side of her face, shoving his own hair out of his eyes. “How the fuck do you know that?” he yelled. His mouth and nose felt gritty from inhaling dust.

“If you’d actually paid attention in our _Cultures Beyond Common_ class back at the institute, you’d know that too!” The forest opened up very suddenly, and for a moment, there was bright light.

As soon as it had come, it was gone: the earth around them was rising rapidly. They were at the bottom of a red-walled chasm.

Lup slowed down. The roar of the engine kicked down to a heavy purr. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Taako said, watching the light pick at glittering motes of light far above them and play over bits banded colour in the walls. “And you did my homework both semesters, so this is on you.”

Lup laughed.

***

They idled in front of the dark walls of the stronghold for longer than they probably had to.

It was intended to look menacing, and it did: the perimeter jutted up and curved inwards, almost as though the people it enclosed were being cradled in the paws of some enormous clawed animal. The doors were high and huge, made of some whorl-peppered wood that had been treated with a slickly shining black resin.

And the smell. He recognized it immediately.

Lup’s face was going through a series of expressions. One moment she looked like she wanted to laugh, the next like she wanted to leave.

“What _is_ that?” she said, finally.

Taako shrugged. “Orc B.O.?” he suggested.

She shook her head. “Maybe it’s like… you know how you go to somebody’s house and it has a smell to it? Like, a smell that you instantly recognize as being from that person’s house whenever you smell it somewhere else?” she mused. “Maybe this is that.”

Taako grimaced and decided against commenting on that. “Should I call Brad’s Stone or something? I mean, I don’t think knocking is gonna get us far,” he said, eying the door.

Lup shrugged and leaned on the horn.

The response was immediate: the whole stronghold seemed to stir.

Taako stared at her. “You, uh, know it’s the middle of the night for them, right?”

“Yep,” Lup lilted, folding her hands behind her head.

***

It was Codera who came to greet them, ushering their battlewagon in through the main door and then leading them into a side building and through two huge rooms that looked to be communal sleeping quarters, both of which were filled with disgruntled orcs, all of whom eyed them balefully as they passed. After these, she led them down a hall and into a smaller space with a smattering of incongruous furniture and a few piles of furs.

“It’s still day, so most of the stronghold won’t be up until at least evening,” she said, shooting Lup an amused look. “You’re welcome to rest here until then.” Her eyes flickered over their dusty faces and windblown hair. She tucked a strip of her own hair behind one ear. “And the baths are further down the hall, if you need them.”

Taako quirked an eyebrow at that. “What, all of them?” he asked, amused.

Codera raised her eyebrows at him. Lup groaned.

“Excuse me and my idiot brother for a second,” she said, smiling, and then tugged Taako over to the other side of the room. “Yes, all of them,” she hissed, “Personal space and privacy aren’t really a _thing_ with orcs, Taako, which you would know if you’d paid attention in class.” She glanced over at Codera. “So yeah: everybody sleeps together, eats together, and fucking _bathes_ together. That’s what you’ve gotten us into.”

Taako opened his mouth. Closed it. He gestured dumbly at the room around them, making a bewildered noise.

“The only reason we have a room to ourselves is because we’re guests,” she hissed, “also, in case you forgot: _elves_. We’re elves, Taako. There are going to be people in this stronghold who have never seen a living elf. Shit is going to get _weird_ tonight.”

Taako stared at her, and then at Codera.

Codera looked like she was struggling not to laugh. “The baths will probably be empty this time of day, if you don’t want to share,” she said casually, turning to leave.

Taako bolted after her. Lup wasn’t far behind.

***

The baths, as it turned out, were enormous pools of steaming, faintly luminescent water. The walls and ceiling seemed to move and undulate, their surfaces dancing with light.

There were also, Taako realized, at least part of the source of the smell he and Lup had been debating about outside.

There was a weird but not wholly unpleasant pungency to them, devoid of the weird ambient dread he had come to associate with the smell of the stronghold and its inhabitants, but still heavy and clinging.

He and Lup lingered uncertainly at the edge of a shallower pool, exchanging glances.

“Hey, uh, lay some more of that orc knowledge on me, cha boy needs convincing,” Taako whispered.

Lup gave him a slightly hysterical look. “I think these are just natural,” she said helplessly. “This isn’t an orc thing, Taako, this is like… a geography thing, I think? I don’t know anything about these.”

“They’re not going to hurt you,” Codera called from the entrance. She sounded amused.

Taako and Lup exchanged another glance.

“Fuck it, I _guess_ ,” Taako said, pulling his tunic over his head just as Lup murmured,

“Well, yolo,” and dropped her pants.

The water was so warm that Taako squeaked with surprise as he stepped into it. Lup, on the other hand, made a noise of approval and plunged forward.

“Fuck it,” Taako said again, and followed her.

His body sank into a luxuriant heat that seemed to melt past his muscle and right into his bones. “Holy shit,” he groaned.  The stone basin of the pool had been worn smooth with use, he discovered as his feet searched for the bottom.

“Holy shit is right,” Lup agreed. Her voice echoed softly against the walls. “Taako, I think I live here now.”

He hummed agreement, dipping his head back to gently work the knots free from his hair beneath the water.

Outside the room, Codera spoke.

It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t speaking in Common, because she’d spoken with the sort of volume that seemed intended for them to hear.

He looked at Lup, found her peeking at the door over an outcropping at the edge of the pool, ears pressed flat against her head, and looked where she was looking.

He knew the face peering in at them from the door, and plunged down in the water, edging towards Lup.

The elder Brad laughed, said something to Codera, and drew back from the doorframe.

Taako edged closer until his shoulder was pressed against Lup’s. “What the _fuck_?” he whispered.

“ _What_ the fuck?” Lup agreed, glancing at him. “Creeper.”

“Sleazebag,” Taako confirmed.

“Scruffy pervoid.”

“Booty-scoping oldie.”

Lup gave him a funny look. “Taako, we’re both way older than him.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, you wanna hustle and get out of here?”

“ _God_ s _,_ do I ever,” she groaned. “Totally ruined the mood.”

***

Clinging to their dusty clothes and wrapped in faded strips of thick cloth that Taako supposed would do as towels in a pinch, he and Lup darted down the hall to their room as soon as Codera gave them the all clear. She gave them a pained grin on the way in.

“Sorry about that,” she murmured, “I didn’t think he’d be up. He wanted to make sure you weren’t wandering around.”

Lup waved a hand dismissively. “Not your fault,” she said, and then threw herself down in a pile of furs with a yawn. “Nothing we can do about it now, right?”

Codera nodded and slipped out of the room, letting the curtain that separated them from the hall fall back across the doorway. “I’m right outside if you need me,” she said from the hall.

Taako watched quizzically as Lup squirmed around in her pile of furs, eventually emerging with her makeshift towel and flinging it across the room. “You’re going to meditate naked? _Here_?” he squawked.

She shrugged. “It’s that or overheat.”

He understood what she meant when he lay down himself: the warmth seemed to catch in the damp fabric. When he flung it off of him, she laughed.

“Hey, Taako?” she said after a moment.

He pulled one of the furs closer around him. “Yeah?”

“Do you think it smells a little better, somehow?”

He did. He hadn’t noticed until she’d mentioned it.

***

_He was curled in the paw of an animal: something sleekly furred and powerful, with sharp black claws that pressed against his skin but did not break it._

_‘This isn’t what I was meditating on.’ He had no voice._

_The pads of the paw were whorled with interconnecting and infinitely unfamiliar symbols, all of them raised in ridges, like scars left by cuts once carved into that leathery surface. He traced them with his fingers, fascinated._

_‘Where am I?’ There was no place inside him for a voice to speak from, no ears to hear, no eyes to see: only a great darkness, and the warmth of the animal._

**_‘You are welcome, and you are safe, child of elves.’_ **

He roused with a gasp, feeling the fading reverberations of a voice that had seemed to speak from inside the marrow of his teeth.

Lup was still meditating peacefully. He stared at her for a while, then rose and dressed.

Just outside the curtain, he found Codera asleep in a chair. She stirred when he crept closer.

“Oh,” she mumbled, “you’re up. Do you need something, Taako?”

He could still feel the warmth of the animal, and the weight of that strange, womblike darkness.

“No,” he said, and then, “yes. So why _do_ Brad and his brothers have a murder orgy every year?”  As soon as he asked it, he knew it was a bad question, but he hadn’t known what else to say.

She eyed him for a moment, glanced down the hall in each direction, and then beckoned him closer.

“How much do you know about the gods of orcs?”

He blinked. “Uhh, there’s Luthic, the f-” he caught himself just in time. “-ertility goddess?”

Codera gave him a narrow look. “Luthic, the Cave Mother,” she said, “and Grummsh One-Eye, He Who Watches. There are others, but as far as you should be concerned, those are the two who matter. Orcs born into clans believe that during the creation of the world, as the gods gave their children places to live, when it came time for Grummsh to choose, it was revealed to him that nowhere in Faerûn had been left for his own.”

She was watching Taako carefully.

“So Grummsh is constantly at war with the other gods, and calls his children to breed plentifully, to overrun the plains and mountain and forests stolen from us, and to join him in battle after death. That’s why we are the way we are: the ancestral belief of orcs is that we have been ‘robbed of tenancy’.”

Taako sat down on the floor, folding his legs under him. He was in a weird mood. It was only getting weirder.

“Luthic is Grummsh’s wife, and the mother of all orcs,” she told him, “she is the cave bear: her fur swaddles the whelp and her claws rend the interloper. Where Grummsh’s followers exist to die in battle, Luthic’s children live to defend and raise the clan’s whelps into warriors. They are a marriage of opposites.”

“What does that-” he started to ask, furrowing his eyebrows, and she looked at him.

“Luthic has been known to grant longer lives to her favourites,” Codera said. “Usually, that’s not an issue. Here, in this clan, it was.” Her brown eyes glittered. “Since I’m sure no one told you, _Ohm_ is the Orcish word for ‘aunt’ or ‘auntie’, and _Ohm Mh’arakta_ is the reason why… everything about this place is the way it is.

“The youngest Brad’s great-grandfather left his stronghold with a few others to start a new clan, and when they found this place, he took the name _Brad_ , which means ‘within walls’.” She said it with a rolling click, like a burst of machine gun fire. “He whelped a hundred children, and drew in every solitary half-orc and isolated family for miles around to join him. His firstborn son was named _Brad_ , second of his name, and his firstborn daughter was named _Mh’arakta_ , ‘the conquerer of gods’.

“She was an incredible warrior: cunning, tough, and gifted with magic. When her father passed and Brad’s grandfather took his place as war chief, it seemed more and more likely Grummsh would call her to join him in battle against the gods- it was what she was named for.

“But she wasn’t just a favourite of Grummsh- she was a favourite of Luthic as well. Luthic delighted in her cunning, and when Grummsh reached out to take her, she intervened, blessing _Mh’arakta_ with life far beyond what any orc is meant to live.

“To hear our _Ohm_ tell it, the skies went white when it happened, and black lightning carved furrows into the walls of the canyon. She thought the world was ending until Luthic came to her in a dream.

“When she woke, the sky was clear and dark but, except for the eldest, except for the new war chief, all of her brothers had died in the day. In his rage, Grummsh had called them all to him, as punishment to the clan for Luthic’s intervention.

“As an outsider myself, I honestly couldn’t tell you why,” Codera said seriously, frowning, “but something happened to Brad’s grandfather- he started the cull of sons. I don’t know if it’s supposed to prevent Grummsh’s anger or make up for what happened, but Brad’s father came out of it.” She shrugged. “And he does it too, only now he’s old, so he’s getting desperate for a successor.” She folded her arms across her chest and snorted. “And he’s got, uh… he’s got Brad. Brad, the _bard_.”

Taako just sort of sat and thought about what she’d said.

“Huh,” he said, finally.

“Yeah, that’s a hell of a story,” Lup said from behind him.

He wasn’t sure when she’d joined them, but she was dressed and leaning against the doorframe. Her mouth was bent in an uncharacteristically serious frown. “Hey, Codera? Doll?”

Codera’s voice was light, untroubled. “Yes?”

“How old _is_ your chief? Because, like, he’d have to be-”

“Forty-four,” Codera supplied easily, and Lup’s words seemed to dry up in her mouth. Codera’s voice was still light, but when Taako looked at her, there was an odd look in her eyes.

“Holy shit,” Lup murmured softly.

Taako looked back and forth between them, feeling lost.

***

“Don’t fuck with me, Lu, there’s no way that’s true,” he complained.

“Orcs don’t live past forty,” Lup repeated, fingers still dextrously at work braiding her hair into an elaborate fishtail, “not unless their gods get involved. Our prof was a little foggy on _why_ , but she was pretty insistent that even if an orc is healthy right up until then and hasn’t gotten themself killed along the way, they just sort of… die at forty, full stop.” She eyed her reflection in the old mirror Codera had supplied. “Okay, but left shoulder or right?”

“Left,” Taako told her, and she pulled the braid over her left shoulder, tying the end with a blue ribbon. “Um, also, all the shit you learned? That was home, not here, so: different planar system. _Deffo_ not the same deal.” He twisted the more unruly bits around the sides of his face back, pinning them close to his scalp. “Part to the left or the right?”

“The right,” Lup said, and he pushed the loose hair on top of his head to the right, combing it through with his fingers, “Taako, Merle had family here- you don’t get to pull the ‘different planar system, different rules’ thing with this one. You just don’t like that your boytoy might get drafted before you get bored of him.” She paused. “How old is he, anyway?”

Taako opened his mouth to answer and then realized.

Her eyebrows slowly crept upwards. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t,” he confirmed, bewildered. “Y’know, I asked him once, but I think we just ended up making out and he never told me?”

Lup wrinkled her nose. “One: gross,” she complained, “and two: if he didn’t want to tell you, he’s probably old. Let’s see,” she hummed, flicking her fingers out absentmindedly, “if orcs are…. I think it’s twelve when they start? And Brad is the eldest, so if his dad is forty-four…” Taako watched her, pausing in the middle of lacing his skirt. “He’s probably around thirty?” she suggested.

Taako gaped as he did the math. “ _What?_ No,” he sputtered, “that’s like… that’s not even a hot level of old, that’s _Merle_ levels of old for an orc.”

She laughed at him. “With how long dwarves live, Taako, I think Merle was ‘Merle levels of old’ before Brad was even born,” she joked. “Especially with that whole hundred years in space thing. This whole place probably got started while we were still on the Starblaster, you know that, right?”

“Cree- _zus_ ,” he muttered, lifting his arms obligingly as Lup started picking at and tightening the lacing on the back of his high-waisted skirt. “How am I so much older than him and he’s still the _old_ one? What the _fuck_?”

Her hands faltered as she snorted. “Uh, welcome to interspecies dating, Taako? Nice of you to catch up with the rest of us on this one,” she teased, “There’s always somebody robbing the grave and somebody robbing the cradle, but nobody knows who’s who-” she yanked the lacing tighter, making him squeak. “-and there’s no one to give you answers on how anything’s supposed to work unless you can hunt down someone who did it first but hasn’t kicked the bucket yet.” He pressed a hand to his stomach and held his breath as she knotted the lacing into a bow. “I know it’s still a new thing, but you want my advice? If you decide you like him enough, see if he’ll go lich together. Solved a lot of problems for me and Barry.” She followed him as he wandered over to the mirror to survey himself, peering over his shoulder into it. “But you’ll have to make up your mind quick on this one, though, Taako: once he’s gone, he’s not even going where we go, you feel? He’s just going to be gone.”

He had a lot of complicated feelings about that, and didn’t like any of them.

***

That conversation informed a lot of his mood for the evening: if he always felt the gap between himself and people who hadn’t crewed the Starblaster, it yawned like a chasm now that he knew how puzzlingly brief and alien the lives of the people surrounding him were.

When Codera came to escort them to the party, red hair slicked back into a sleek bun, ruddy skin streaked with lines of white ash, he found himself wondering how old she was. It wasn’t a consideration he normally dwelled on with anyone but children and the very old.

“You look,” she started, eyebrows raising, “like elves. Just like elves.” The way she said it suggested not that it was a bad thing, but that she’d either failed to consider or had consummately forgotten they weren’t going to be equipped to dress in a way that suited their surroundings.

Her own clothing was plain, but clean and well-made. She wore a thick leather pauldron over her left shoulder. It didn’t look like it had seen battle: there were designs stamped into its surface and the surface of the strap around her chest that secured it.

This was, Taako decided then, going to be the opposite of how the party at the Goldcliff Trust had been.

He and Lup exchanged glances.

As Codera led them out through the building they were staying in, across a dusty courtyard, and into a huge central building, Taako knew he was right.

The attention they drew was immediate: neither the greys and greens and occasionally orange-hued reds of orcs and half-orcs nor the dark greens of the few goblins dodging between them did much to provide camouflage for two people as decisively blue as they were.

“-greetings to our _Ohm_ first, and then-” Codera was saying as she led them along the wall and away from the central crush.

As loathe as Taako generally was to blend in anywhere, he had misgivings about the belated realization that he was walking into a room where literally the only people his height or shorter were his sister and those same goblins.

Even those rare full-blooded humans he spotted in the crowd seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Magnus.

“-just stick close to me,” Codera was saying to Lup.

He felt very small, and not in an especially good way.

He spotted a familiar smooth green head and pair of beady black eyes and grabbed. “You!” he said in Goblin, “I know you. Uh, Zeeber, right?”

Xybart eyed him curiously, gaze flickering between him and Lup. “Xybart,” he corrected quietly, “you’re not dead yet.” He sounded impressed.

Taako sneered at him. “Uh, _no_ , I’m Taako?” he said, “Okay, Zeeber, my man, cha boy is going to need a crash course here-”

“Uh, Taako, people are staring,” Lup interjected, also in Goblin, presumably for Xybart’s benefit, as a nearby orc with a crested helm laughed loudly and said,

“Elves who speak the goblin tongue! And do you speak the tongue of orcs?” she asked in heavily accented Goblin.

“Nope,” Lup said, and Taako added,

“Why, you speak Elvish?”

The moment both of them had looked up, giving her and the others surrounding them a good view of their faces, it happened.

He was so used to being surrounded by people who had known him by reputation even before the Voidfish had broadcast his history that he’d almost forgotten what it looked like when people realized who he was.

The murmur seemed to run through the crowd like a spreading fire, a repetition of unfamiliar sound passing from lips to ears to lips.

The orc with the crested helm said a word he wasn’t familiar with, and then, “the twins! Taako and Lup.” She crouched, squinting at them with her head turned, and he realized she was missing an eye. “I am Bhul. To what do we owe this honour?”

Goblin was not a language well-adapted to pleasantries and orcs not a species inclined to use the more grovelling phrases of ingratiation it possessed, so what she said was actually,

“I am Bhul. What are you doing here?”

but with such a respectful intonation that he decided she hadn’t intended to be rude.

“We heard it was your, uh-” He was blanking completely on the word. He turned to ask Xybart, only to find him gone. “The passage of another year for your elder?” he said awkwardly, and Lup laughed at him.

“We’re here for a birthday,” Lup corrected, elbowing Taako lightly.

Codera said something, then, in Orcish, and Taako assumed it was confirmation: the only words he recognized were _Ohm Mh’arakta_ and that same machine gun burst pronunciation of _Brad_.

Bhul laughed again and clapped her on the shoulder before turning away, shoving a path through the crowd of curious orcs that was starting to converge. Codera herded them into her wake, bringing up the rear of their strange entourage.

“Is she a one-eyed orc?” Lup asked her in Common. Taako glanced over at her, unsure why she was speaking so quietly.

He was about to point out that she was, in fact, very clearly missing an eye when Codera answered with a wry smile. “Yes,” she confirmed, “and my wife.”

Lup’s expression was complicated.

Bhul barked something in Orcish, shouldering another orc out of the way and opening a path to the centre of the room.

He saw the fire pit first, then the kegs, then the bear sitting by the fire’s edge.

When she moved, he knew her without knowing her: it crept spiderlike over the back of his brain like an instinct.

 _Ohm Mh’arakta_ was an absolutely ancient-looking orc with long, nearly-white hair, skin that had gone as grey and mottled as the stone they stood on, a spine that time had started to twist into a hunch, and piercing, intelligent black eyes.

She was swaddled in an enormous bear skin, but did not look small: it was obvious at a glance that once she had been a tall and powerfully-built orc.

“Come closer, children of elves,” she said in Goblin, voice gnarled with age, but not brittle or thready. She spoke with a clipped precision that suggested a long familiarity with the language. “My nieces told me of your presence, and Bhul, thirteenth daughter of my brother’s only living son, tells me you speak the tongue of goblins?” The firelight flickered over her yellow teeth as she spoke.

“Naw, I mean, we’re elves-” Taako said in Goblin, and Lup elbowed him again.

“Yes,” she contradicted. “But we don’t speak Orcish, though. Sorry, doll.”

Taako grimaced at her.

The orc elder hummed contemplatively. “The elves: Taako,” she said, “and Lup.” The way she said their names made them sound like the crackle of fire spreading over bark and the bursting of a knot in a log in the fire pit. “My brother did not tell me of your coming, but I know you and what you have done for our world.”

She was so old, and yet not nearly as old as they were. Everything felt ridiculous.

“Yuh-huh, sure, you’re welcome, surprise and happy passage of another year from cha boy,” Taako said flippantly, using the wrong phrase on purpose. Lup stomped on his foot.

Mh’arakta barked with laughter. “I like you, elf,” she said warmly. “Yes, let us drop frivolities and be as orcs and their guests should!” She looked at him and at Lup with those unclouded eyes, and then turned her head and said something in Orcish to those around her that seemed to catch them off guard. It raced through the crowd like word of their presence had. “Sit with me and let me buy your stories with my ale, elves Taako and Lup,” she said, pounding the long bench beside her before saying something else in Orcish to Codera, who squeezed her wife’s shoulder with a hand before disappearing into the crowd.

Taako was not, in that moment, attentive enough to recognize the subtle shift in atmosphere, but he knew a good deal when it was offered to him. “Fuck _yeah_ , Taako’s down, let’s go shot for shot, birthday girl,” he said, mincing around the fire to perch on the bench beside her. She smelled, he noticed, of turned earth and wood smoke and dark ale and the special pungency of the bathing pools, but exuded none of the ambient dread some of her family did. “And I bet you used to get up to some nasty shit, huh? Lay it on cha boy, I wanna hear that _good_ dirt.”

By all appearances, Mh’arakta was utterly delighted by this proposition. “A contest!” she crowed, the wildness in her eyes blazing to life. “Yes, _yes_ \- I may be old, elf Taako, but do not think you can best me! Have you tasted orcish brew?” 

“ _Uhh_ ,” Lup said, and Taako looked up, surprised to see her still lingering by Bhul on the other side of the fire. “Maybe I’ll field this one, Taako-”

Mh’arakta raised a hand out of the depths of her furs and pointed a finger at her, eyes narrowed. Her knuckles were knotted and swollen, like old wood. “Do the dead have reason to surrender to the dangers of drink?” she asked. “I know what you are, elf Lup: the living must have contest with the living, and the dead with the dead.”

Lup shrugged and put her hands up in the universal gesture of _well, you’re not wrong_ and looked at Taako.

Taako looked between her and the elderly orc he had decided was his ticket to drinking and gossiping his way out of the weird existential funk the evening had put him in. “I’m good for it if you think you’re good to keep an eye out for haters,” he told Lup in Elvish. “You down?”

She smiled. “Taako, your girl did us a solid and told everybody that since we’re from a different planar system, we’re outcasts in this world, too,” she told him. Her words were a cool, familiar trickle over the gruffness of Orcish muttering. “We might even get through this one without having to set anyone on fire.”

“So you’re down?” he repeated, and she laughed.

Mh’arakta was looking at him closely. “Like water,” she mused to him when he met her gaze. “Your language sounds like water.”

“Sure, okay,” he said, shrugging. “I thought we were drinking and trading dirt?”

She chortled and beckoned. A nearby goblin pattered over with a pair of tarnished iron cups. Taako was disappointed to see it wasn’t Xybart this time, but only a little.

As she took one, he realized what she’d been clinging to under her furs was something like a waterskin. Looking around, he released that seemed to be a common theme: all the orcs he could see were taking  draughts out of skins, rather than cups, whether or not they were seated at the few long tables or standing elsewhere. Even Lup seemed to have acquired one while he wasn’t looking, and was chatting with Bhul and a recently returned Codera.

The cup was unexpectedly heavy. The liquid within it was dark and aromatic.

Mh’arakta was looking at him sidelong, smiling. “You may still surrender, if you chose to,” she offered.

“Naw, _yolo_ ,” he said, and took a long drink.

He made a mental note to thank Brad for accidentally preparing him: if he hadn’t already been familiar with the rich, earthy flavour of Orcish beer, it might’ve caught him off guard.

Still, he thought as he surreptitiously transmuted it into something more diluted, there was no reason not to have an edge.

“Not bad,” he said easily, and then tipped it back it to take another drink.

Mh’arakta was giving him a truly wicked smile.

The liquid within his cup was not, as he had expected, the weaker and less flavourful human ale he had transmuted it into.

It was a wine, of sorts, something spicy and faintly floral and very, very strong.

He forced himself not to falter and knocked back a long mouthful of it anyway. Mh’arakta was chuckling. One of her hands was slightly raised, fingers outstretched. He could felt the prickle of magic in the air.

She said nothing, but her eyes were twinkling as she raised her own cup to drink.

In a moment of inspiration, he transmuted its contents into a strange, vegetal moonshine he remembered sipping at on one of the planes he’d visited.

She choked, spitting some into the fire and causing it to flare green. The orcs who were watching tensed.

She roared with laughter.

“What is this?” she demanded, still laughing. “What is it you’ve made me drink?”

Her laugh was infectious. “I dunno, some shit these tree people made?” he snickered, “You get used to it.”

She chugged it down like a champion, slamming her cup down on the bench between them in challenge.

He shrugged and threw back the rest of his own, mimicking her. His eyes watered as the spice of it burned in his nose.

A goblin raced in to refill them from the nearby casks. Mh’arakta growled thanks.

“Tell me, elf Taako,” she said, “I know your story until it meets the edges of our plane, and then only those of the artifacts- tell me of your exploits in my Faerûn.”

“Well, if we’re dishing, I am _dating_ the grim reaper,” he bragged, sipping at the cup placed in his hand.

She seemed intrigued. “Impossible,” she said, but without heat. “Did you defeat him? Of which god is-?” She used a Goblin word that indicated uncertainty about the gender of the person being referred to.

The context of the first question didn’t escape him. He wondered suddenly where Brad was.

“Raven Queen,” he answered, and she nodded solemnly, throwing back her own drink. “And, uh, yeah? Actually, yeah, sort of- see, since we kept dying when we were visiting the planes-”

He told her his stories and she told him hers: tales of battle and of cunning, of her exploits when she was young and strong. She told him of defeating mighty foes, and of brokering trade between her clan and the goblins who lived in the network of narrow caves deeper in the gorge. Beer flowed freely between them, and they stopped counting the cupfuls, but continued to sabotage each other with turns of magic.

He was nodding and swaying, only half-hearing her story when he realized he knew it.

“-seemed to break open into white nothingness,” she recounted, gesturing with her twisted fingers. Through his hazy eyes, he could almost see the shape of her as she had been.

“I thought I would fall up into it and be lost, but the Mother cut at the white sky with her black claws and gouged stones from the walls above us to throw at her husband. The sound, elf Taako,” she said, patting his knee with that gnarled hand and leaning forward conspiratorially, “there are no words in any tongue I speak that could make you know the sound of it. The howling. The air shook with it.”

He didn’t realizing he was leaning in until he nearly knocked over his drink.

She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were looking through him, at something else. “For sixteen days, there was neither light nor darkness, and I did not sleep, for every time I closed my eyes I heard the drums of war and felt the white sky reaching down between our walls to get me,” she said, “and then, on the dawn of the sixteenth day, I fell into a deep sleep, for I couldn’t resist it anymore.”

He barely tasted his drink as he raised it to his lips. Belatedly, he realized it’d been almost empty before, but now was full.

“She had me curled into her embrace, my hands against the pads of her paw,” she whispered, looking wistful, “and it was a darkness and a peace I have never known since. She spoke to me, and told me of what had happened, and when I woke, all my brothers but one had died in their sleep, drawn up to appease the hunger of the white sky.”

Her expression focused, and she scowled into her empty cup, thrusting it towards a goblin hovering nearby. “He believed me cursed, and now his son does, too,” she muttered. “My nephew was not always so foul, but now he is old, and Grummsh has not taken him, so he fears Grummsh will not have him at all so long as Luthic holds such sway here. He fears to die and be robbed of the glory of the gods’ battlefield.”

“Yeah, but,” Taako slurred, thinking hard and choosing his words carefully, “fuck that guy? Ya girl Luthic seems like a good time, _tee-bee-aych_. She’s down to party.” He gestured too excitably and beer sloshed out over his hand and onto the cloth of his skirt. He barely felt it.

Her stare was curious. “What do you know of the Mother of orcs?”

He shrugged languidly, feeling loose and fluid. “She’s like some sort of divine, um-” He realized he legitimately did not know the word in Goblin. “ _Wingman,_ uhh?” he mumbled in Common before continuing, “someone who helps you have sex with someone you wanna have sex with by convincing them boning down on you is a good idea,” he explained, feeling ridiculous. “And something something bears, I guess?”

The second he said it, he felt the warmth of her and smelled the musk of her fur and felt the ridges of the pads of her paw: the memory rose in him, unbidden, crawling over the surface of his beer-fogged brain.

He froze, bewildered.

Mh’arakta was watching him very closely, squinting against the fog of her own drunkenness like it’d help her see him better. “And how, elf Taako, have you come to know this?”

If he’d been less drunk, he probably could’ve summoned any number of plausible excuses for possessing that very basic level of knowledge, but as it was, he knew the moment he opened his mouth that he’d fail any bluff he attempted.

So instead, he opened his mouth, closed his mouth, clinked his cup against Mh’arakta’s, and threw it back, chugging its entire contents and hoping he’d just black out before he inevitably slipped up and said something incriminating.

Even as drunk as he was and as chill as Mh’arakta was, he didn’t think “ _I’ve been climbing your great-nephew like a tree and your girl in the sky there seems pretty down with it, actually_ ” was going to go over super well.

“Come, elf Taako,” she was urging, sounding torn between extreme amusement and almost painful intrigue, “tell me! Tell me how you have learned of our Mother’s blessings! I must know or I will never sleep for wondering. Tell me your tale!”

He fumbled his cup back down onto the bench and then shook his head sharply back and forth. His brain felt like it sloshing back and forth against the walls of his skull. “ _Nuh_ , Taako don’t snitch,” he said, drawing two fingers across his lips in a zippering motion.

She laughed.

Past the furs, the hunched shape of her, he saw him.

He tore his eyes away, looking pointedly elsewhere, and said,

“ _Nuh_ , uh- _nuh_ , cha boy do-on’t _snitch_ ,”

again, this time more loudly.

If he’d been looking, he would’ve realized that Brad looked bewildered by this outburst, but instead his eyes were drawn to Lup where she was sitting on Bhul’s shoulder, gesticulating madly to a small crowd of onlookers. Flame burst from her fingertips, looping through the air and forming into flickering shapes before vanishing into white smoke. The plume of Bhul’s crested helm was smouldering.

He giggled.

“ _Ohm Mh’arakta,_ Taako,” Brad said, and Taako yelped, knocking the newly filled cup in front of him off the bench. “I hope I’m not interrupting?” he said first in Common, and then said something in Orcish to Mh’arakta.

Eyes still twinkling, she jabbed an accusing finger first in Taako’s direction and then down at the bench, which he recognized as the universal sign of _we’re not done here_ , and then turned her head to say something to Brad.

Taako was struck with a strange realization: while Brad was as tall as or slightly taller than most of the people around him, and was by no means a person with a slight build, beside other orcs he looked oddly svelte. He didn’t possess the same thick muscularity as they did; his neck and arms didn’t have that tightly corded look. He was built more moderately, more like a rogue or a ranger or a-

Taako started giggling uncontrollably.

Both Brad and Mh’arakta looked at him curiously.

“Taako?” Brad asked in Common, just as Mh’arakta prodded him with a,

“What? What is it?” in Goblin.

“He’s the-” he started to say to her, and then directed an “are you-?” at Brad before he started laughing so hard tears welled up in his eyes. “ _Fuck you, Dad, I’m gonna be a bard,_ ” he shrieked at Mh’arakta, poorly imitating Brad’s voice.

She looked momentarily confused and then began chortling. She said something to Brad.

He looked exasperated but unsurprised.

“Taako,” he started, moving closer, past Mh’arakta, to give him a look. “You do know-”

“You were _that_ kid,” Taako wheezed, tears streaming down his face, “I can’t handle this-”

“The most amazing thing is how long it took you to realize that,” Brad said wryly, or tried to.

Halfway through saying it, Mh’arakta barked with surprise and grabbed him by the ponytail, hauling him down to one knee with surprising strength. Taako started hiccupping.

She spoke with a sharp urgency that seemed to alarm Brad, who kept making motions that seemed to indicate he was trying to encourage her to keep her voice down.

For a few long moments, Taako had no idea what was happening, and then he realized what she was worked up about.

She kept pointing at the white hair in her fistful of ponytail, yanking it in front of his face and firing clipped phrases at him.

Taako watched his face, feeling drowsy and surreal, and tried to swallow his hiccups.

He watched the Brad’s bewilderment evolve first into disbelief and then into a very complicated look with flavours of both wonder and alarm. He asked her something.

Taako stiffened when Mh’arakta’s piercing stare turned on him. “Taako don’t _snitch_ ,” he repeated again without really knowing why, bringing his arms up in a sluggish x-shape over his chest.

Mh’arakta looked at Brad, and then at him, and then at Brad again, nearly-white eyebrows rising. She said something to Brad.

Brad visibly blanched and started talking very quickly.

Mh’arakta started laughing so loudly that people turned to look at her. Her shoulders were shaking. She fired off what was unmistakably an incredulous question at Brad, who very urgently started making _please keep your voice down_ motions again.

Taako started giggling too, felt a wave of light-headedness crash over him, and made the executive decision to lie down on the bench before he fell over. “Taako’s tapping out,” he mumbled in Common, patting the wood with his hand.

“Are you-” Brad started to ask.

“Oh shit, you good, bro?” Lup yelled across the fire pit. Taako pressed his face against the bench but gave her a thumbs up.

He barely registered the multilingual negotiations that followed, just whined pathetically when someone carefully scooped him up off the bench just as he was starting to drift into a shaky meditation of not being a very drunk elf passing out in the middle of a party.

It took him longer than it should have to piece together that the person carrying him was, in fact, Brad, though he guessed that actually did make the most sense.

As soon as they were out of the crush, he realized just how loud it had been. His ears ached. He could hear a ringing sound. The cool air of the courtyard was a relief.

“Are you okay, Taako?” Brad asked him quietly.

“Brad. Bradson, my man, I have made,” he mumbled, scowling when he hiccupped, “so many mistakes. Tonight.”

Brad laughed softly. “I’ll get you some water once we’re inside,” he promised. “Just how much did you have to drink?”

Taako raised a hand weakly in a lazy approximation of a shrug. “I dunno,” he mumbled, “a lot.” He opened his eyes and frowned. “It’s still so dark. I thought… the sun-?”

Brad looked like he was trying not to laugh at him. “Taako, it’s only midnight,” he said gently. “You, uh… probably should’ve paced yourself.”

Taako closed his eyes and flipped him off. He felt Brad’s chest vibrate as he laughed.

There was something oddly soothing about being carried. He could hear Brad’s heartbeat, and rather than making him nauseous like he might’ve supposed, the rhythm of Brad’s long strides was making him drowsy. He mewled plaintively when Brad lay him down in a nest of furs.

“I’m going to bring some water,” Brad told him. He heard the curtain over the doorway to the room rustle.

After only a few moments, he started to overheat. He plucked at the lacings of his skirt clumsily, whining when his fingers skidded over the knot. He was still trying to undo it when he felt Brad’s hands guide him into a sitting position.

He gave up, taking the waterskin from him and drinking deeply from it. When Brad moved to leave, he grabbed at him.

“Help me take my clothes off,” he demanded. Brad looked slightly alarmed.

“Taako, you’re _very_ drunk-”

Taako squinted at him. “No shit?” he said snidely, and then added, “cha boy’s got struggles.” With that, he flopped back and rolled onto his stomach.

Brad sighed, but he felt his fingers picking delicately at the lacing of his skirt anyway. After a few long moments of no apparent progress, Taako opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder at him. “You good?”

Brad shook his head. “I need something small to pick these knots apart. My fingers are too big,” he said, and Taako palmed at his hair, yanking out a pin. Brad took it with a thankful murmur.

Taako continued yanking pins out of his hair and flinging them across the room, sighing with relief as Brad started loosening the restrictive lacing around his middle.

Brad hissed in a breath through his teeth when he had finally loosened the skirt enough to pull it down.

Taako hummed inquisitively.

He shivered as Brad traced a finger down his side. “You’re covered in marks.”

Taako shrugged, rolling onto his back again. The pressure of lying on his stomach was starting to make him feel slightly sickish. “That’s fashion, my guy,” he mumbled, and took another draught from the waterskin.

“Lift your arms,” Brad instructed. Taako obeyed dutifully, ducking his chin to avoid getting caught in the neckline of his shirt as Brad pulled it over his head. He watched Brad set it carefully aside before starting to peel off one of Taako’s boots.

“I got those,” he mumbled, trying to kick them off and accidentally kicking Brad in the ribs instead. Brad caught one of his calves in a big hand and removed them properly, one by one, setting them aside. Taako wormed into the furs, curling up.

A part of him expected Brad to leave immediately, but he lingered.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked.

Taako squinted at him. “Why?”

Brad opened his mouth. Closed it. “I don’t want to go back,” he admitted.

Taako patted furs beside him clumsily, closing his eyes. “So don’t.”

Brad hesitated and then lay down beside him. He was quiet for a moment. “ _Ohm Mh’arakta_ knows we’re-” he started to say, and Taako snorted.

“Yeah, cha boy kinda got that,” he murmured. “S’on me. She vibed pretty hard on me having boned an orc, so… yeah.” Exhaustion pulled at his senses, but he forced himself to open his eyes again. The mood was creeping back in as water and fatigue sobered him up. He reached out and plucked at strands of Brad’s hair, pulled them towards him. “Hey. You gonna just like… die whenever, my dude? ‘Cause you legally have to tell me if you are. S’fucking rude.”

Brad looked taken aback. “Legally have to- I’m sorry, what?” he parroted, sounding confused, and then reached out to smooth Taako’s hair back from his face. Taako watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. “You’ve been talking to Codera?” he asked. He looked conflicted.

Taako looked at him, pressing his lips into a fine line.

“Not everyone lives for hundreds of years, Taako,” he said gently, “or even a hundred.”

“Yeah, I know, but nobody else has a god who fucking _murders_ people for getting old, my _guy_ ,” Taako shrieked, trying to sit up and immediately collapsing back onto his side, feeling winded. He snarled at Brad, letting himself be angry purely because it was better than the pathetic, lost, faintly nauseous alternative. “Is that a real thing?” he asked between panting breaths.

Brad was quiet for long enough that he didn’t real need to answer. “Yes,” he said finally. “It’s not common, but yes, Grummsh does, um, call healthy followers to bolster his armies sometimes.”

“ _‘Call healthy followers’_ ,” Taako mimicked mockingly. “I guess that’s _one_ way to put it.” A weird fluttering agitation was growing in him, twisting somewhere between his lungs and his guts. “Don’t-” he started to demand, and then rolled over to face the wall. “Don’t.”

Brad was quiet for long enough for Taako to start to lose himself in the slush of his thoughts. His eyes burned. His hair smelled like smoke. His mouth tasted sour.

“…Taako?”

Taako pulled the furs over his head, curling deeper into the pile.

“Taako,” Brad said quietly, “I didn’t think… I didn’t expect anything from you, not anything that would make that… matter,” he confessed, “I still don’t know what you-” He sighed. “There was never a good time.”

Taako clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “If you can tell me, Bradson, when you think a ‘good time’ for that kind of bomb to drop would be, I am _all_ fucking ears,” he seethed. “I _asked_ you,” he accused, “I fucking _asked_ you.”

Brad sighed. In the stillness and silence of the empty building, Taako heard him swallow. “It would’ve changed things.”

Taako pulled the furs over his head back and levelled a glare over his shoulder at him, ears folded flat against his head.

Brad opened his mouth. Closed it. “I’m twenty-nine,” he said awkwardly. “I don’t _want_ to die, Taako, I just… know I’m going to.” He looked profoundly unhappy. “I don’t have to look forward to it with the same anticipation as other orcs do for it to still be true for me. If that’s my truth,” he said, running a hand over his face, “so be it. We can’t all receive Luthic’s blessing.”

Taako stared at him, rolled over, and stared at him some more, finally grabbing a handful of his grey-streaked hair and just pointing at it incredulously.

Brad shrugged. “I don’t know what that’s about,” he admitted. “But… Taako, I am an orc, and I have all but abandoned my clan. _Ohm Mh’arakta_ has dedicated her entire life to the care and defense of our people- that’s how you curry favour with the gods, not,” he murmured wryly, “by collecting stamps and doing paperwork and living on the moon and-” A weird expression flitted over his face. “And sleeping with an elf. If anything,” he said, “to Luthic, the most impressive thing I’ve ever done must be sleeping with _you_ , the most powerful Transmutation wizard in the planar system. But an acknowledgement of that isn’t the same thing as a blessing.”

“You could go lich,” Taako pointed out, which wasn’t what he had intended to say but all he could think of.

Brad flinched. “Taako-”

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I know.” The silence felt oppressive. “This fucking blows,” he complained, and Brad laughed.

“I’m sorry,” Brad murmured.

Taako glowered at him. “Good to know, that sure makes this blow less, _huh_? I’m drunk as hell and feel like shit and god might fucking kill you whenever but at least you’re _sorry_ , we can put that one in the _bank_.”

Brad reached for him and then stopped. “May I?”

Taako snarled at him but still wormed closer, pressing his face into his chest. “This _blows_ ,” he complained again, more loudly, and Brad laughed a little.

Brad wrapped an arm around him, holding him tight. “Sorry,” he murmured again.

Taako kicked him in the shin before closing his eyes and letting himself drift into an uneasy meditation.

***

**_‘Do not flee from me, child of elves.’_ **

_He could smell her fur. Her heartbeat was an ancient drum. The darkness was unbroken, but he still knew his surroundings almost as though he could see them._

_He tried to speak, and couldn’t._

**_‘Think on me and I will know your thoughts. Words are the domain of mortals.’_ **

_‘This is… Luthic, right?’_

_He knew her by her presence, now. She was pleased by this._

**_‘The world of my children is changing. I believe we, too, must change, if we wish to guide them to prosperity. The old ways will no longer do. In this, my husband and I do not agree.’_ **

_A rumble, so low it seemed to resonate in the marrow of his bones, and infinitely vast. She was curled around him in a pose of hibernation, holding him in a single scarred and black-clawed paw._

**_‘It is he who has been slighted by the god of elves, not I. I know you, Taako, child of elves. I have beheld Istus’ tapestries. I have studied the weaving of your history.’_ **

_‘Uhh… okay? You want an autograph or something?’_

_Her laughter was a soundless earthquake._

**_‘I have called you to me, child of elves. For all his attempts to spurn me, the war chief is my child, as all orcs are and must be. He has called you because I have called you but cannot speak to you unless you close your eyes within the womb of my den of worship. You are not my follower.’_ **

_‘Bad reception,’ he thought, and she laughed again._

**_‘Yes, of a kind.’_ **

_‘So what can Taako do for you?’ he wondered. ‘Because if we’re being honest, cha boy does not know why he’s here.’_

**_‘A war is coming.’_ ** _He felt hot air and smelled iron and gunpowder and magic. **‘The gods were shaken by the knowing of the Hunger, for when mortal mouths prove themselves capable of swallowing gods, and when mortal hands prove all that can prise those jaws open to free them, even gods may be humbled.’**_

_He felt her tug the Bond between them._

**_‘The other gods have made their peace, and look to progress and prosperity. All but one.’_ **

_He had a feeling he knew which one._

**_‘Yes, child of elves, it is my husband who resists. My children will not be sabotaged by his love of war.’_ **

_He felt the enormity of her rage, knew how she bared her endless teeth._

**_‘There will be a war between us, and I will win, but when I do, my children will fall prey to the natural chaos that follows revolution. They will be vulnerable to the unscrupulous. They will require allies.’_ **

_Even if he’d been able to speak in the traditional sense, he would’ve been speechless. ‘Are you asking me to get involved in a fucking divine coup?’ He wished he could scream, laugh, anything._

**_‘Yes. I have seen, and know that you have known a son of mine, have felt the triumph of his perfect form, have seen his adaptability in this changing world, and know he speaks to the potential of all my children to evolve. I have always cultivated and watched closely the oddities amongst my children for this reason: if the earth is to buckle, those who live below its surface must adapt if they are to survive, and those who do shall pave a road for those who follow.’_ **

_He could feel her breath stirring his hair._

**_‘I will not let my husband take my children from me, but I cannot keep watch of mortal fools. Aid me, Taako, child of elves and vanquisher of the Hunger.’_ **

He came out of his meditation flailing, strangely convinced that he had been thrown from a great height and was falling. He scrambled to his feet.

Brad looked bewildered and a little alarmed. “Taako?” He had his hands raised like he wasn’t sure what to do.

Taako stared at him, panting. His heart was thundering in his chest.

“Your goddess is a _dick_ ,” he shrieked. Brad’s eyebrows shot up.

“What?” he said, and then, “you should probably lie back down-”

Taako flapped a hand at him dismissively. “Naw, cha boy’s good, worked it off.”

The bewilderment was starting to rise to the forefront of Brad’s expression. “Taako, it’s been… twenty minutes, if that,” he said, sitting up.

Taako stared at him. “What?”

“What?” Brad answered, looking baffled.

“Your goddess,” he repeated, “is a _dick_. Cree- _zus._ ” He scrubbed his hands over his face and then pressed them to his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.

“You… spoke to Luthic? That’s- that should be impossible,” Brad said.

“Apparently not if I’m _‘in the womb of her den of worship’_ , whatever the fuck _that_ means,” he seethed, pacing. “She kept going on about all sorts of absolutely bananas shit, all of which has something to do with how she’s going to _murder_ her husband, I guess?”

Brad looked startled, but not especially upset by that. “Oh,” he said. “Well.”

“Oh?” Taako shrieked. “ _Well?_ Bradson, are you even _listening?_ ”

Brad put up his hands defensively. “I don’t really know how to process any of this, Taako,” he said awkwardly, “ten seconds ago you were lying in my arms and I was trying to decide if elves can throw up while they’re meditating like other species can while they’re asleep, and now you’re… awake and apparently sober and yelling at me about how my goddess is planning to kill the god of my people and decided to confide in _you_ about this. You. An elf.” Brad ran a hand through his hair. “I am going to have to ask you to give me a moment, but I will be honest with you, Taako: you sound insane. Why would,” he said carefully, “an orcish goddess reach out to an elf before any of her own followers?”

He opened his mouth to respond, very suddenly remembered what she’d said, and felt his face flare with heat. “ _‘Felt the triumph of his perfect form’_ ,” he wheezed, pressing his burning face into his hands. “Hey! Hey, Bradson?” he shrieked. “Remember that time when you invited you goddess to take a ringside seat on our fun little bone-down _sesh_? Because I do, and let me tell _you_ , my man, she sure fucking does!”

He threw himself down on the pile of furs, wailing.

Brad started hushing him, glancing nervously at the door. “Taako, please-”

“Brad, your dick got me involved in a coup!” he shrieked.

Brad looked like he very much wanted to laugh at that but couldn’t decide if he should. “I’m sorry,” he said frantically, “whatever I did, I’m sorry, please just- please just keep it down-”

He was struck, again, by the chasm between them: there was a certain innocence, a lack of exposure to the horrors and chaos Taako had seen, required to make a person worry about attracting unwanted attention or disrupting a party while being told about the possibility of divine spousal murder.

Taako looked at him, and had a weird moment of wonder over just how normal Brad’s life had been up until he’d gotten involved in it.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “yeah, it’s- it doesn’t matter. Forget everything I just said, my man. Elf fugue.”

Brad was giving him a strange look. “Elf fugue?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Taako confirmed, as though he wasn’t making shit up whole cloth.

Brad just sort of looked at him, but didn’t push it. “Should we-” he started, standing up, “do you… want to go back?” He didn’t look especially enthused by the possibility.

“Naw,” Taako said, “cha boy’s gotta get his head sorted.” He patted the furs beside him again, encouraging Brad to lie back down.

Brad did, but very cautiously.

Taako frowned at him. “I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Brad said diplomatically. “Only that what you were saying sounded unbelievable.”

Taako snorted and scooted over, spooning into him. “This good or you scared I’m gonna start saying crazy shit again, huh?” he asked petulantly.

Brad’s arm curled around his waist. “This is fine,” he said quietly. “I’m just worried about you, Taako.”

Taako glanced up at him. “Cha boy’s good,” he insisted, pressing close. “He’d be doing better if he wasn’t the only one who was naked,” he teased, running his fingers over Brad’s forearm.

Brad swallowed audibly. “That is a _terrible_ idea,” he said emphatically. “And I thought you were upset with me?” His tone suggested he was having a lot of trouble keeping up with the rapidly changing direction of Taako’s mood.

The latter comment almost distracted him from the intriguing subtext of the former, but didn’t quite. “Naw we’re good, elf fugue,” he said nonsensically, craning his head to look at Brad curiously. “Brad, that wasn’t a _no_ ,” he pointed out, “Saying that something is a bad idea is not the same as saying you aren’t gonna do it, you can trust Taako on that one.”

He could almost hear Brad working through how to respond to that, and squirmed around to face him, intrigued. “I mean, if you’re not down, just say you’re not down,” he pressed, “otherwise cha boy’s gonna have say it again: that _wasn’t_ a no.”

Brad’s eyes darted between him and the door. “It wasn’t, no,” he confirmed after a moment. He looked uncharacteristically nervous, but there was something lurking beneath that was bit wilder.

“At least one of us would _probably_ get fucking murdered if we got caught,” Taako pointed out.

“Yes,” Brad confirmed, eyes still flicking towards the door.

“I mean, best case scenario, it’s Lup who catches us, and that would honestly still be the _worst_ ,” he mused.

Brad hummed understandingly and nodded, but didn’t pull away as Taako looped his arms around his neck.

“It’s just not worth the risk,” he lilted, feigning disappointment as he watched Brad’s expression closely.

“It absolutely isn’t,” Brad said quietly. His arm tightened around Taako’s waist.

Taako shrieked with laughter and then strangled it when Brad shushed him. “You,” he teased, pressing his body flush to Brad’s, “don’t get to call _me_ crazy, Brad Bradson.”

“I never said you were,” Brad said firmly and then laughed a little breathlessly. “This is a terrible idea, Taako.”

“You’re the old one, you be an adult about it,” Taako said flippantly, sliding his hands under Brad’s shirt appreciatively.

Brad whispered something to the ceiling and then sat up and stripped his shirt off. “This is going to be what gets me killed,” he muttered as he undid his pants.

Taako ran his hands up his back, nuzzling into the warmth of his skin. “I mean, if it makes you feel better, my guy, it’s not like we can really do much more than make out and blow each other without lube on hand,” he reassured him, a little disappointed by the realization.

Brad paused and stifled a very strange bark of laughter. “Taako,” he whispered, “half of the time this room is used, it’s because someone’s sleeping with a non-orc who isn’t comfortable with the idea that everyone can see them. That’s not going to be an issue.”

Taako bit back a laugh of his own. “They put me and Lup in the interspecies boning room?” he hissed.

Brad shrugged, standing to strip his pants and underwear off. “We use it for a lot of things,” he said quietly.

Taako grabbed at him eagerly as he slipped back into the furs, melting against him. “Hi.”

Brad just kissed him, palming his ass with one hand and burying the other in his hair. Taako made a soft noise of surprise into his mouth as he pressed up against Brad’s already respectably attentive erection.

“Bee-ar-bee,” Taako told him, squirming down under the covers.

Brad shuddered when he licked a long strip up the shaft of it. Taako felt his hand tighten in his hair.

“The longer we take, the higher the risk we run of getting caught,” Brad whispered anxiously.

“Deffo,” Taako agreed, and then slid his mouth over the head of his dick. Brad strangled a groan. His hand pressed down for a second and then moved hastily to Taako’s shoulder.

Taako had a wicked thought.

He wrapped one hand around Brad’s shaft, used the other to pull Brad’s hand back to his hair, and pressed down on it.

Brad sucked in a sharp breath and muttered unintelligibly. “Taako, you’re going to get me killed,” he whispered, but did start guiding Taako’s head first with one hand, then both, nearly enveloping Taako’s skull in his palms.

Taako moaned, sucking hard at the tip and relishing it when Brad’s hips bucked upwards with enough force to make his mouth collide with his hand where it was preventing Brad from accidentally choking him.

He squeaked when Brad hauled him up and on top of him again, palming his ass with both hands and kissing him.

“Taako, can I try fingering you?” he asked urgently.

“Yuh, I mean, that’s gotta happen anyway if we’re gonna-”

“No,” Brad interrupted, eyes darting towards the door, “Taako, can I try fingering you _now_?”

Taako blinked, hesitated, and then whispered, “You can _try_ ,” a little incredulously.

Brad held him tightly as he reached out and groped first inside he drawers of an old-looking dresser, and then under the legs of it, retrieving a bottle of unfamiliar liquid.

Taako stifled a startled laugh. “How many lube stashes are _in_ here?”

Brad didn’t answer, just kissed him again.

The feeling of Brad’s slick finger tracing his asshole made him whine with enough volume that Brad hushed him urgently.

When the tip of it pressed in, he yelped so loudly that Brad actually clapped a hand over his mouth, staring towards the door and then slowly relaxing.

“Is this okay?” he murmured, and whether he was referring to having that hand over his mouth or if he meant the pressure of that thick finger pushing into his asshole, Taako didn’t know, but nodded anyway.

He whined into Brad’s palm helplessly as he pushed past the first knuckle, then the second. Without the preparation of having fingered himself first, Brad’s finger felt impossibly thick, no matter how slow and careful he was being.

“Is this okay?” Brad asked again, and started pumping his finger in and out as soon as Taako nodded. His hand pressed more tightly against Taako’s mouth when he wailed. “Let me know if it’s ever too much,” he insisted.

When he started carefully pushing in his second finger, Taako scrabbled at his chest, gasping. Brad paused for a moment, waiting, and then continued when Taako rocked his hips back against his hand.

He wondered, vaguely, if this was how it had felt the first time Brad had fingered him, or if it was more intense.

The thought vanished as soon as Brad started thrusting both fingers in, spreading them carefully. His back arched almost involuntarily, and Brad had to chase his mouth with his hand to keep it covered.

His fingers curled against Brad’s chest.

Whatever Brad was using as lubricant, it was dripping down the insides of his legs and filling the air with a heady scent that was making his skin tingle as though someone were running the tips of their fingers up his spine.

By the time Brad began to press his third finger in, Taako was riding his hand, reveling in the sensation.

He moaned into Brad’s palm once he finally began to move all three in unison, slow at first, then more quickly as Taako rocked his hips back.

Brad slowly withdrew his fingers, leaving Taako mewling against his palm and then lifting it carefully away from his face.

“Are you-” he started to ask.

“ _Yuh-huh,_ ” Taako whined, too drunk on sensation to care how loudly he said it, already trying to align Brad’s dick under him.

Brad hushed him again and kissed him hard while he slicked himself up.

It was some sort of oil, Taako realized dreamily. His whole body felt boneless. He bore down eagerly when he felt something press against his asshole. Brad clapped a hand over his mouth again.

Brad choked down a groan and grabbed his hip with his free hand. “Slowly,” he warned, “don’t hurt yourself-”

Taako shook his head, pushing down.

Brad swore quietly and shifted into a sitting position, swallowing Taako’s noises with his mouth as he guided him down over his erection more slowly.

Taako whined impatiently, clutching at him. When he felt Brad bottom out, he moaned, trying in vain to roll his hips up the length of that erection despite Brad’s grip.

There was a noise in the adjacent room.

Brad pulled out of him fast enough to make him mewl with complaint. For a second, he seemed to have disappeared, and then Taako realized he was crouched rather ineffectually behind a large armchair, watching the door with wild eyes.

They both waited, and listened, Taako still in the splay-legged he’d fallen into when Brad had bolted.

Oil was dripping down his thighs.

There was nothing. He heard nothing, no matter how intently he listened.

Taako rolled onto his knees and looked over his shoulder at Brad, palming his ass invitingly.

Brad moved out of the dubious cover of the chair more slowly than he would have liked. Taako arched his back, thrusting his ass into the air like a demand.

Brad pressed his hand over his mouth before anything else, which Taako could agree was a good call: he whined high in his nose as he felt Brad sink back into him, slow and careful, trying not breathe too loudly, abortive sounds dying as rumbles deep in his chest.

Taako sat up slowly, keeping Brad’s hand pressed tight to his mouth, faltering once he realized the height difference was putting a kink in his half-formed plan.

“Can you cover your own mouth?” Brad whispered in his ear, and he nodded.

He pressed both hands over his mouth with record speed when Brad picked him up by the thighs and held him there, thrusting up into him.

“Oh gods, Taako,” Brad moaned softly, pressing his face into his hair for a moment.

They were just starting to get into a good rhythm when it happened.

An ear flicked. There were, now unmistakably, voices in the adjacent room. Taako tensed, expecting Brad to pull out again, but instead, the dick in his ass just slowed.

Taako bit down on his fingers to keep from wailing as Brad very slowly pulled nearly out, the flare of his thick head tugging at Taako’s asshole, and very slowly thrust back in until his hips were flush against his ass again.

Someone walked past the curtain. Taako held his breath, pinching his nose to stifle the high pitched noise that threatened to leak out of him as Brad started quickening his pace, working into a rhythm of short, shallow thrusts.

Taako bit down on his fingers harder, dropping his other hand to stroke his dick.

Someone walked past the curtain again, and paused in front of it.

Brad’s teeth braced against his shoulder as he thrust hard up into him, something like a groan rumbling deep in his chest.

When the first of those powerful pulses hit his asshole, Taako nearly had to shove his entire fist in his mouth to keep from wailing. By the third, he was coming, hand flying desperately over his dick.

When he able to open his eyes again, there was no one in front of the curtain, just him, panting around his fingers and splattered with his own come, and Brad, breathing hard on the back of his neck and still holding him aloft with a hand under each thigh, his toes just barely brushing the furs beneath them.

“Are we dead?” he whispered after a long stretch of silence. It was only half a joke.

“If we can’t figure out how to clean this up before someone does come in,” Brad murmured, “maybe?”

“I can’t fucking _believe_ ,” Taako croaked, trying hard not to give himself over into hysterical giggling, “we just got away with that.”

“We haven’t gotten away with it yet,” Brad warned him, hugging him close to his chest and then stretching an arm out to grab the makeshift towel Taako had thrown on the floor just hours earlier.

Taako grimaced as he scrubbed it over his stomach and then positioned it underneath him, slowly pulling out with a grunt and lowering Taako onto it.

“Let that catch the, um, drainage,” Brad told him quietly, and then hastily began to dress.

Taako grimaced at him. “That’s a nasty fucking choice of words you went with, my man,” he whispered. Brad shrugged at him and pulled on his shirt before guiding Taako onto his back and wiping him clean as best he could.

“Now,” he murmured, balling the towel into a wad and wrapping the other one around it, “we’ve gotten away with this.”

He made a move towards the door, faltered, and squatted down beside the pile Taako was languishing on.

“They’ll have noticed I’m gone by now,” he said apologetically. Taako waved him away, feeling magnanimous, and was surprised when Brad snuck a kiss. “Sorry in advance,” he added, looking a little repentant.

“For what?” Taako tried to ask, but he’d already slipped out of the room. “Bradson-”

He knew _what_ the second he tried to stand and go after him and found his legs unwilling to support him. The muscles of his thighs and ass ached. He could feel his own pulse in his asshole.

He looked down disbelievingly.

“You didn’t ask me if I had plans this time,” he hissed at the door Brad had disappeared through. “Mother _fucker_.”

***

When Lup came in later, rousing him from his meditation, she was visibly tipsy, but not drunk. “You okay?” she asked him in Elvish.

He gave her a thumbs up, not sure how to parse, let alone explain, most of what had happened between his leaving the party and now.

She grinned at him, started to say something, and then stopped, nostrils flaring.

“Did you- what is _that_?” She paused. “Where are our towels? And how did you get your skirt off?”

He pulled the covers over his head, snickering.

“ _Ugh_ , I can’t believe you,” she shrieked.

He was still walking a little strangely when they left a few hours later, after Lup had sobered up.

She gave him shit for it the entire drive back.

**Author's Note:**

> ORC FACTS:
> 
> \- like 80% of this is absolutely true but I'm too tired to list which is which  
> \- I'm just so tired folks  
> \- maybe later
> 
> GOD FACTS: 
> 
> \- I just like the idea of Luthic manifesting to mortals as a literal bear okay


End file.
